


Maestro

by ShayLaLaLooHoo



Series: Short Stories [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: But open to interpretation, Dystopia, Music, Music as a metaphor for emotion, Music as a metaphor for freedom, Shippy if you Squint, very soft romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 01:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18355589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayLaLaLooHoo/pseuds/ShayLaLaLooHoo
Summary: Evangeline Cullen overlooks the city streets in silence.Recognized and presented at the National Undergraduate Literature Conference.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, you read the summary right, this was presented at a national conference. This piece was nationally recognized. I'm rather proud of it.  
> I have also forgotten when I originally wrote this, but it was in my senior year of high school as a reaction to 1984. This was presented, however, at the 2018 National Undergrad Conference, on either March 16th or 23rd.

The silence resounds.

Through the glass doors of my balcony, I see the broken pavements of the narrow streets, embedded with grime and shards. If I ignore the fragrance of wildflowers at the edge of my gate and the weeds pushing through the cracked foundations of houses, I can smell the sweat and blood in the city streets. Judge Cullen had claimed that outside my stone walls, there was a multitude of sinners treading the oil-slicked streets to atone for some unrecorded deed. I wished, at times, that I could go and see for myself, but my cowardice would win out. Within my home, I believed myself to be hidden from murder, theft, assault, or any other nightmare of which I’d been told.

Judge Cullen, my guardian, claims he’d done all he could to protect me from these vices. Clinging to what he said was how I used to learn.

I listened in silence until the Maestro came.


	2. Duet

The scent of the flowers that wafted through my open balcony doors was far too bitter, in my opinion. I would have considered closing them, but then I wouldn’t have heard what was happening in the streets. Hunting dogs howled, and policemen shouted to one another. The sounds echoed off the walls, creating a din that was almost pleasant. I listened, almost soothed by the voices of other people: knowing that there were others – safe, breathing, and alive – was always a distant thought unless I heard them.

When first rifle fired outside, that was my cue to shut off the balcony. My fingers curled around the cool handle of the double doors, closing one side with a clatter.

_“Hello?”_

I jolted away from the voice below, disappearing back into my bedroom. Hidden, I tried to gather my bearings.

Visitors were not allowed, that much I knew. However, I never went outside, and that person was down in the streets, where they couldn’t reach me. Judge Cullen’s warnings pressed at my mind, but there couldn’t be harm in speaking with one person.

Could there?

“...Is someone there?” They asked.

With a deep breath, I took one tentative step back onto the balcony.

“Who’s there?” I ventured, arms crossed and fingers grasping the white lace of my sleeves.

Someone emerged from the shadows of an alleyway, a long, black coat sweeping the dusty pavements below them. My brow furrowed; their features were strong, dark hair cropped close to the nape of their neck, and a layer of stubble dotted his jawline. The figure looked and dressed more like Judge Cullen than I – a man? However, he was younger and much more tattered than Cullen. He stared up at me, eyes wide, unbelieving.

“Who are you?” I asked, jaw set.

His lips parted slightly before he spoke. “Peter.”

That name had belonged several men in Judge Cullen’s ledger. It seemed suitable for someone of this appearance.

“Peter,” I echoed, and lifted my chin. “What are you doing here?”

A rifle fired in the distance, and he flinched. I did not.

“I’m hiding,” he said as he looked back to me. “How are you not afraid?”

“What do you mean? I’m accustomed to the guns,” I replied. “It’s when they stop firing—”

Another shot echoed, striking a nearby doorframe. Instinctively, Peter jumped over the edge of the fence and ran directly to the edge of my balcony. He reached up to me, begging.

“Let me in?”

Something strange stirred in my stomach, just how the wind would shake the leaves of a tree. I went to the edge of the balcony and leaned over the railing, extending my hand to the stranger below. He placed his palm within my own, and I was surprised  
by the warmth. The skin on his fingertips was thick – what was that called?...

Callouses.

He climbed his way up the wall, and I offered whatever assistance I could, though little. When his feet touched down upon the floor, he leaned over to catch his breath. With a sigh as he straightened, he pulled something from a large pocket in his coat.

I shrieked and shielded my face.

“What is it?” He asked, gently moving my arms from their defensive stance. “It isn’t a weapon. It can’t hurt you.”

“I don’t know what that thing is!”

He glanced down. “This? It’s a violin.”

“What does it do?”

“It makes music.”

“Music?” I took another step away.

His face dropped. “Do you know what music is?”

“No.”

Peter held the violin in both of his hands. “Well, it’s when...I mean, it’s what happens when sounds combine.”

“All the sounds I usually hear together don’t sound pleasant,” I noted, leering at the strangely stringed thing. There were still shouts and barking outside.

“But with music, it’s... _hmm_...” he glanced around the room. “I’m not sure how to describe it.”

“What does it look like?” I prompted, and he flushed.

“Music isn’t something that can be touched.”

“But you said the violin made it!”

“Yes, but...well, just listen.”

He tucked the violin under his chin and pulled a strange stick from the large pocket of his coat. When they connected, bright peals pierced the air. It was strange to my ears; pointless, skipping sounds that brought a lightness to my chest. The music swept over and around me, and I felt as though I’d been lifted off the ground. It sounded bizarrely jumpy, yet not unpleasant, and I unconsciously tapped my fingertips together to the violin.

“You have a very wide smile,” Peter noted, lowering the stick.

“Does all music sound like that?” I asked, restraining myself from bouncing on the spot.

“No,” he replied, sharing my grin. “There are different arrangements of notes— those are the separate sounds, and how long they are. The pitch is how high or low it is. Combining notes of different pitches makes a melody, and you put melodies together to  
make different songs.”

“But do they all feel so bright?”

“Not all of them,” he replied. “Sit down and listen to this one.”

I settled onto the foot of my bed. He straightened again, placing the stick against the strings, and the violin wailed, emitting a haunted, miserable strain. My shoulders stooped as the music continued, and Peter poured his spirit into every note. The brief melody ended on a strained, high pitch, hanging in the air even after the violin left his shoulder. Unlike the light feeling in my chest, this melody had left me with a weight on my back and tears that shouldn’t have come.

“It was wonderful,” I whispered. “So why am I crying?”

“Because it’s a sad, beautiful melody,” he smiled, not quite reaching his eyes, examining the violin. “I wish I could have done it justice, but I am no maestro.”

“Maestro?”

“Someone who is a master at music,” Peter explained. “I don’t play that well. You should have met my father.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever known who can play a violin,” I said. “You’re the closest to a maestro I’ve ever met.”

His gaze never left the violin, fingers tracing the mahogany with a sort of reverence.

“I’m the only person who can play anything anymore,” he recalled. “Music has been banned for years.”

The foreign weight on my spine doubled. The silence hung heavily in the air, overwhelming, echoing.

“Why…who would do such a thing?”

He appraised me. “You don’t know who?”

I shook my head, and his face blanched. His eyes were wider than they had been when he was being chased by the police.

“You – you’re Evangeline Cullen?”

“You know who I am?” I said, jumping to my feet with an ache in my chest. “I know no one save Judge Cullen.”

“Everyone knows you.” He clasped the violin tighter. “You’re the face of the government.”

“I know nothing of governments.” My voice was shrill, unfamiliar.

“Judge Cullen is a member of The Board of Leaders— He wants to prove that our society can be successful if… well, he thought that shutting you away would stop you from forming opinions, I suppose.”

I turned my back to him. This had to be lies. All nothing, words spoken by a stranger. I shouldn’t have listened. Still, I let him continue.  
“I mean, he doesn’t want us to think for ourselves – I, sorry, this isn’t an attack against you – but Judge Cullen—” Peter groaned. “I…I guess what I mean to say…”

“You think he wants us bridled?” I finished for him. “That Judge Cullen believes that if we have no deep emotion, we’ll have no opinion? We’ll simply conform and blindly follow on their heels?”

“Please, Evangeline, you must believe me!”

“Why then?” I whispered, curling in on myself. “Why would music be banned?”

“When I – I was playing, you were smiling, almost dancing. You seemed so happy, and then so sad. And music is very emotional, because you were crying…” Peter stopped stuttering, looking over my hunched, shrunken form. He then forced a rather hollow  
laugh. I glanced over my shoulder, surprised.

“Evangeline, I am hopeless with words,” he continued, and raised the violin slightly with a bitter smile. “This is all I have.”

I shook my head. Lies, everything was just lies. Now I wasn’t sure who was saying them.

“If all that you say is true, then Judge Cullen had already failed with me,” I said hoarsely. “Even without the music.”

“What do you mean?”

I twisted around, a heated tightness unfurling in my stomach like a match dropped to the oil-slicked streets. “Because I’ve always felt small and weak and abandoned and lost! I only smile because it seems like the right thing, the proper thing to do when you  
want to comfort someone but cannot speak!”

Peter remained silent, holding the violin slack against his side. With his free hand, he cradled my head against his chest, and I could hear the beat of his heart, a soothing song within my ears.

The rhythm of heavy footsteps came pounding up the stairs. Pulled from my reverie, I grabbed Peter by the hand as we both ran toward the open balcony door.

Two policemen, stationed beneath my window, raised their rifles as one. We backed away.

“Foolishness, foolishness!” I whimpered, cornered in my room. Peter wrapped his arm around me, embracing me as he gently pressed his lips against my forehead.

I wasn’t sure of what he’d done or why, but before I could ask, the judge came into the room, flanked by two more policemen.

“Please!” I dived, throwing my arms open in front of Peter. Cullen seized one of my wrists and pulled me aside.

I collided against a wall, my breath knocked out, my throat tight and choking against Judge Cullen’s hand. Through the stars in my eyes, I saw as one of the policemen kicked Peter to the ground, and the other tore the violin from his grip.

“Wh—” I gagged on his fingers.

“Stay silent,” Cullen spat.

My sixteen years grew crystalline. The strings of the violin were cut, the handle snapped. Peter lifted his face once more, and we met gazes, an unfamiliar intensity sparking within us.

Then came the gunshot, the strangled scream, and the blood, rivers between the floorboards and droplets off the balcony edge. 


	3. Crescendo

Peter’s death was semi-public – an example to the people, a gory banner of success for this government that I now know. My death was slower, for why would they brag about killing their figurehead? My death would have to be silent, but I refused to be.

My punishment was served with precision – they threw Peter’s body from the balcony, then dragged his mangled form into the streets and out of my garden. His violin, now unrecognizable, was placed beside him. They’d left me alone after the impromptu execution, Judge Cullen locking my door and leaving me kneeling in the pooled crimson, staring at the bloodied wildflowers below.

It took a month or so of solitude before I realized that I could make music with my voice. If Judge Cullen hears me, I am gagged. But oh, is it worth it, to hear the strange and foreign melodies tripping off my tongue, in notes and pitches I arrange mere moments before they escape. I sing of Peter – of his smile, his gentility, his sacrifice, and his violin.

This music is louder than my speaking – the judge hears it, the Board of Leaders hear it, and the people in the city streets hear me. They look up at me with some sort of hope and then scatter when Judge Cullen arrives to gag and bind me.

These are the times when I can hear nothing but the blood in my veins as I stare at the stain on the floor, hoping for a day when the people will sing too. And I remember Peter, my violinist, my maestro.

This is when the silence resounds, and it resounds painfully. 


End file.
